It was another fifteen minutes of me struggling not to set RZ on fire before he and Kreios ambled off down the corridor, two old chums discussing the art of dead-guy magic. Ordinarily, I would have paid good money to continue to listen to the Devil squeeze the rapper for information, but I didn’t think I had it in me to keep my cool or my hands to myself. RZ had seriously started to shuck my corn.
“Got your six,” Nikki said behind me. I turned, and she brushed hair away from my face, her long fingers grazing my cheek.
“You had your mental gates clamped down so hard, I couldn’t read you, and that’s saying something,” she said.
“You have no idea,” I said, drawing in an unsteady breath. “But the salient points are these: He, like everyone else we’ve encountered, thinks he’s God’s gift to Myanya or, more specifically, the vessel she’s inhabiting. He’s convinced that vessel is here in LA. He is further convinced he can overpower any display of strength that Myanya puts out because he’s encountered her once, lapping up a taste of her power as she was in her first flowering, as he described it. There’s something to that, I think.”
Nikki wrinkled her nose. “You mean beyond me needing to shower with bleach?”
“Beyond that. I got the sense that it wasn’t RZ demanding Myanya through a magic pentagram, but encountering her in some other situation. In person. We should look up any sort of costume ball or other major event that’s taken place recently, someplace where he could encounter Myanya’s proxy without knowing her identity and nobody would think that’s weird.”
Nikki snorted. “That’s half the bars in LA.”
“And he was all over the LA coven being upset about him about to rule them, so clearly, he believes the witch is part of that organization.”
“Danae has already cleared our introduction there, though she’s insisting we have to dress for the part.”
“Like that’s ever a problem with you.”
“Both of us, dollface, and by dress, she means we need to have a man on our arm. Or a woman. The witches of LA show their power not only in the kind of power they wield, but who they have in attendance. I offered to be your date, but she said no, that we needed to both ante up, and the easiest way for me to do that was with an appropriate dose of man candy. I voted for Kreios, so you can’t have him, but she thinks Armaeus would come out of his pointy-tipped penthouse for a visit to Lara Drake, the high priestess of the LA coven. They’ve never met.”
“Oh?” I thought of Armaeus hanging from the Olympic rings, streaming with sweat and blood. “Any chance Drake is our vessel?”
“It’s always possible, but unlikely, according to Danae,” Nikki said. “Lara Drake is no blushing violet, and though Myanya does occasionally go for older witches, her norm is the ingénue. Plus, Drake’s about sixty years old and on her third husband. I think if anyone like RZ came calling to crush her under his heel, she’d roast his face off.”
“Fair enough.”
“And that’s not your only issue,” Nikki said. She pointed to where Death was working. “According to Danae, you need to access your inner power a little more completely, and for that, you’ve apparently gotta go talk to Death. Your reactions in the Moscow coven were quick, but not quick enough, she’s decided, now that you’re this close to Myanya.”
“And how exactly would Danae—” I stopped and put my hand to the necklace around my neck, jerking it off. The chain snapped easily, and I handed it to Nikki. “No. This has to stop. I can heal myself spontaneously, but Danae can’t—especially if I don’t know she’s been hurt while she’s peeking over my shoulder. I don’t need her watching over me just because I’m working inside the covens.”
Nikki took the ankh, but frowned at me. “Well, actually, you kind of do,” she said. “You don’t know witch magic.”
“I didn’t know witch magic,” I corrected her. “As of this week, I’ve been on the inside of more pentagrams than most witches in the western hemisphere have in their entire lives. I don’t want to drag Danae into danger unexpectedly, and I might if she’s watching me that closely.”
“Okay, then keep this. Just not around your neck, maybe,” Nikki said, unstringing the ankh and handing it back to me. “Because I’ve also got no clue about witch magic, and I would feel much better knowing that you have someone in your corner who does.” She scowled, rubbing her chin. “We probably should have looked at ascending Danae to the Council, not merely to the House of Swords.”
I shook my head. “I think Ma-Singh would have something to say if I started making the House of Swords a feeder system for the Council.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think the big lug likes to keep tabs on what’s going on with them. Having you in place qualifies as an exceptional coup among all the generals. He’s working it.”
By this time, we’d made our way over to where Death was set up. The middle-aged woman was gone, and though an entire wall of people were standing around, staring at Death in utter adoration, there was nobody sitting in her chair.
She looked up when I approached and gestured to the seat. “About time,” she said.
“Um, you wanted to see me?”
“What was your first clue?” She waved again to her inking chair. “Sit.”
“Really?” I said, eyeing the crowd. “You don’t think we couldn’t find a private room, maybe have dinner first?”
“What’s your issue? Relax. They don’t know it’s you.” I stepped up on the dais, and could feel the net of magic close around me.
“Who do they think I am?”
“Young tough, green hair, full leathers, nose ring. Rumor has it it’s my kid, though half the crowd disputes that.”
She gestured lazily, and I glanced out at the crowd. Sure enough, there were several small knots of people in heated dispute, most of them pointing at the dais.
“This won’t take long, anyway.” Death picked up a tattoo gun that wasn’t connected to an ink stream hose, and I raised my eyebrows.
“Isn’t ink part of the point?” I asked, shrugging off my jacket, smirking at my own words. I was a black belt in defensive punning, particularly when I was nervous. I was also wearing a black T-shirt underneath my jacket, to match my black jeans and heavy boots, pretty much the standard attire for the ink show, unless you were Nikki Dawes. I took a seat in Death’s souped-up dentist’s chair.
“It is usually. Not for you. Left arm.”
I sighed and stuck out my left arm, angling it wider as Death targeted a point just inside my bicep. “So what is it I’m getting permanently inscribed on my body this time?”
“A short cut. Try to remember to breathe.”
She put the needle to my arm, and pain immediately shot through me in all directions, radiating out from the point where the needle pierced my skin, sending shock waves throughout my nervous system. Every one of my chakras roared to life, even the one that hung out about sixteen inches above my head. I tried not to howl with pain, but it was a close thing.
“Can they see this?” I gasped, staring at the crowd, who looked at me with complete unconcern. “Because if I’m your kid, somebody should be arresting you for child abuse.”
“You’re such a baby,” Death muttered. “No kid of mine would sit there whining like a ten-year-old with a skinned knee. You need to suck it up.”
“And you need to—ouch!” My eyes almost crossed as she changed the direction of the needle, tracking a pattern up the curve of my muscle. I dared a look at my actual skin, but I couldn’t see any stream of ink. Especially since all the skin around the point of the needle appeared to be smoking. “Is that seriously the way this is supposed to be done?”
“What you fail to realize, despite constant reinforcements from the universe around you, is that you are not an ordinary person, Sara Wilde,” Death replied, eminently unperturbed by my yips of genuine pain. “You allow yourself to access your deeper magic in fits and starts, and while that has served you well up to this point, there’s going to come a time where you will need to access a steady stream of power, a power you can’t simply cut off because you get scared.”
“I don’t get scared,” I protested, lifting my right arm to swipe away the sweat that was gathering on my forehead. “I just don’t think I need to go all Jean Grey, Eater of Worlds, every time I run into some trouble. I want to control the flow of magic through me, not let it take me over.”
“And that’s where you make your mistake,” Death said. “You’re not Jean Grey. She’s a comic book character, the creation of some illustrator’s fevered mind. You’re the creation of your own mind, while your body was forged in an unholy alliance between a goddess and a demigod member of the Arcana Council.” As if to punctuate her words, she punctured me a little more forcibly, making me jump in my chair. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you have not returned to Sensei Chichiro since you ascended to your role as Justice.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” I retorted. The sensei had been recommended to me to help me control my rapidly increasing abilities. And she had helped, truly. But she had a similar form of tough love as Death did, and there were limits to how much I hated myself.
“I know, which is why I am taking pity on you and cheating a little bit.” Death forced the needle into my skin at yet a new angle, the fresh wave of pain so intense, I almost passed out. “Now, when you feel the urge to stifle the flow of magic, I want you to focus on the design I am etching into your skin.”
“I can’t even see the design you’re etching into my skin.”
“You will shortly. It’s the Eye of Horus, but invisible as such to anyone other than you. And, arguably, to the Magician, since he has a similar tattoo etched into him.”
I frowned. I happened to have an exceptional memory of every inch of the Magician’s skin, and I did not remember seeing such a tattoo. In fact, to my knowledge, Armaeus had absolutely no tattoos anywhere on his body. “Why would he hide such a thing from me?”
Death didn’t need me to explain what I meant. “It’s not intentional. The ink the Magician received was in the first hundred years of his ascendency to power. He did not have any true spell-casting abilities when he first ascended, and he quickly recognized this as a weakness he could not afford to let stand.”
I nodded, grateful for the distraction as well as the moment’s breath Death gave me while she laid down one gun and picked up another. “He mentioned that,” I said. “How exactly is it that he ascended to his role of Magician without having ever cast a single spell?”
“Because when the need is great, the Council acts with the greatest level of efficiency. Spell casting is something that can be taught, the same as you being given tools to access your powers despite your concerted efforts to avoid formal training. But it is the magic within that cannot be discounted. There are members of the Council who should be in maximum security prisons, but instead of paying for their crimes, they’ve been exalted.”
“You got that right,” I said, thinking of Viktor Dal, the Emperor, whose pre-Council activities included an unfortunate collusion with Nazi Germany—and even of Gamon, whose life before her tenure as Judgment was not exactly something that anyone would put on a résumé for anything other than a wet work specialist.
“Stop focusing on the impropriety of it and analyze the need,” Death said. “And I told you, breathe.”
“I’m breathing,” I gasped as Death bent over me again, this new needle smaller and more delicate than the first, but I didn’t think that was going to have anything but a negative impact on the level of pain it exacted from me.
I was right.
“What in the hell,” I screeched, practically jerking out of my chair while Death somehow managed to follow me for a half second more before she pulled the needle free.
“You’re lucky I was expecting that reaction.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t just vomit on you,” I shot back, reluctantly straightening in my chair before I held my arm out again. “Will you please finish this up sometime before my hair turns white?”
She chuckled and bent over me again. “The Magician began trying to convince you to ascend the moment he met you. You didn’t realize it at first, but that doesn’t change the truth. He knows you are fated to bring great change to the Council, but you have to be the one in control of that change. You can’t wait for his permission, or the Devil’s, or mine. You can’t wait until the mortals you encounter are ready for you to do what you must. You carry the mantle of your friendships like a protective cloak, but ultimately, they are not your shield. You are both shield and sword. The sooner you realize that, the better you’ll be prepared for what will come.”
She straightened and stood away from me, and I scowled at her. “Yeah? And what’s going to come?”
“So many possibilities for you, Justice Wilde. Insanity. Death. Domination. Love. Creation. Destruction. But all of it relies on you, if you will only reach deep within and give rise to your power when the situation demands. Now you are ready to do so.”
I looked down at my arm, and the implacable Eye of Horus stared back, the thick line of the Egyptian symbol etched in deep, glistening purple. An unreasoning apprehension slithered through me. What had I allowed to be done to me?
“So, uh, that’s it?” I asked as Death set down her ink gun, and held up my left arm toward her, fanning dry the glistening symbol. “No instruction manual on how to use this tat, no video tutorial? You’re just going to leave me all by my lonesome—me, myself, and eye?”
She glanced back, grimacing. “You have more access to resources now, not less, Sara. You’ll understand how to use the access point I’ve provided you when the time comes. There’s no need for you to retreat into humor merely because you’re frightened.”
“Eye, eye, Captain.”
“Don’t make me regret my actions today.”
“Never,” I said, scooting off the chair. “In fact, we took a vote as to whether or not you were our favorite Council member. Guess what?”
“Don’t.”
“Yup. The eyes have it.”
An expression of genuine irritation crossed Death’s face, and satisfaction rolled through me, which was a nice change from the waves of pain that were still cresting and crashing across my nervous system. She continued. “Once you’re finished, you’ll do well to remember that you can choose how you manifest your power and where to place your energy, but ultimately, no one can help you more than you can help yourself.”
“Right.” I frowned down at my bicep. “I guess it’s you and me against the world, buddy,” I said. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?”
Death sighed heavily, then turned away. “I knew this was a mistake.”